Vacation Detours and Delays

By Laura on August 25, 2024

As we get close to the end of another summer I was thinking about past summers and trips I've taken and some of the memories I have from those vacations and adventures. Growing up we always traveled with an itinerary, whether it was a list of places we wanted to visit or things we wanted to do. Sometimes it was a fairly detailed itinerary because we had to have ideas in place based on where we would be and when we would be there, while other times it was a much simpler document that just listed all the ideas that we had that we might want to try to do while we were someplace. But as I thought about those travels, some of the most prominent memories I had were from things that you couldn't script or things we did that we didn't know would be in our travels.

Did you need a plan for vacations like this? Yes, because it's a good way of making sure everyone enjoyed at least part of the trip. But if you've done any traveling you know that there's always something that happens or shifts or changes or gets cancelled regardless of your best efforts or you find you have extra free time or you find something along the way that seems really awesome and you want to check it out. So as important as the plan may be, it's also important to not be so structured that you can't take advantage of the other opportunities that come along, or the detours you might have to take.

It's also a good life lesson: that detours and delays aren't all bad. Sometimes it's those moments and adventures that are the most freeing, fun, wonderful, memorable, or rewarding. Was the original plan awesome? Yes, of course, and it's disappointing that things had to change, but that doesn't mean we should let the trip be ruined or be so upset that we miss out on the other opportunities, even if it means you spend a quiet day at the pool or move on to the next leg of the trip early and spend more time at that planned destination or know that you can stop somewhere interesting along the way. What have been some of your favorite and most memorable detours you've experienced while on vacation?